


Karma (As They Say) Is A Bitch

by Bakageta



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Body Horror, Gen, Mild Gore, Other, Pre-Relationship, but no actual characters from titanfall, more like titanfall as a setting, titanfall fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakageta/pseuds/Bakageta
Summary: Eddie feels them follow his thoughts: get to Frisco somehow, drop off the USB-key, see what happens from there. If they can do anything, then there’s no reason not to try.Maybe they could even hijack a Titan.--------The Titanfall fusion no one asked for.





	Karma (As They Say) Is A Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> I love Titanfall but, boy, do I have no inspiration for it, but then I got to thinking and this happened. You shouldn't need any familiarity with Titanfall's setting to understand this. Please enjoy!

The hike from Drake’s remote compound to the shuttered Brock homestead outside Yaunkers isn’t an easy one but it’s a damn sight easier than trying to make it cross continent back to his shitty apartment in Frisco.

Eddie relaxes as he catches sight of the familiar outline of the old hab module he’d spent most of his childhood in. He doesn’t have many fond memories of the place, his Dad and Grandad had both been as anti-Corporation as you could get when they’d settled the place and it had only gotten worse over time. Not that Eddie could really blame them with how the Corporation had demanded resources from the colonies they had left abandoned for years. That had all started before Eddie’d even been born. His dad, however, had lived through it and the evils of governmental authority backed by the Interstellar Mining Corporation had been Carl’s go to excuse for why Eddie wasn’t allowed to leave.

Before Eddie had left for Frisco, it had seemed more trouble than it was worth to live off grid on the outskirts of Yaunkers. Now, with all that had happened, he wasn’t sure.

Other than the hab, there’s the hangar that houses Grandad’s stripped down Hornet plane alongside the blackmarket sim-pod and the shed where they had kept the rest of their equipment. The fields that equipment had once maintained were now long overgrown with local flora and Eddie honestly wasn’t sad to see them gone. Even with the tech Dad had carefully maintained, it had been back breaking labor.

Its condition is about what he expected after being left to its own devices for over two decades. The automation has kept out the fauna that had originally made the IMC mark down Yusah as only mostly habitable during initial surveys of the Frontier and the area immediately around the old buildings is only a little overgrown.

There’s a few things Eddie needs to do to get the place up and running enough for however long he’ll need to lay low, but it can all wait until after he’s had a nap. He’s probably more tired than he’s ever been, even counting his childhood, and the fever he’s been running since Drake released that--since he got out of Drake’s lab isn’t helping. His stomach grinds almost painfully against itself and Eddie amends his plan to food then nap then everything else.

Inside of the hab is exactly how he left it over a decade ago, bare walled and covered in dust. The living area to the left of the hab’s entrance contains a single cot and a couch separated by a low table, the tiny kitchenette with it two burner stove and mini fridge is to the right, and the door to the bathroom off of the kitchenette is still ajar. He’d set maintenance on the inside to the bare minimum before he left to save on power so everything is dusty and a little musty but it’s workable. Anything perishable was disposed of long ago so rations for dinner will have to do.

The greasy little block he finds in the kitchenette advertises itself as containing three days worth of ‘non-thirst-provoking’ nutrition, but Eddie has his doubts as he forces his way through it. The brick sized chunk tastes like a rotten, mealy apple, and it takes all of Eddie’s self preservation to not toss it out the hab’s door and into the woods. If he throws it out it’d be a waste and he’d just have to start on another of the dry, dusty, **_dead_ ** things.

“Just have to go out tomorrow…” He mumbles as a distinct pleased thought occurs in the back of his head.

**_Hunting…_ **

He had meant into town, but hunting would probably be safer, less chance of being caught on camera and drawing in Drake’s people. He hadn’t hunted for his food since he’d left Yaunkers behind though, it was odd to be thinking about how he and his grandad had used to go out and set snares for the local rabbit equivalent.

“Damn place’s bringing back memories…”

Eddie lays himself out on the cot, not wanting to sleep on the couch where his dad had drunk himself dead.

It doesn’t take long for sleep to come, running for your life will do that to you, but when it does--for a short moment--Eddie feels like he’s back in his grandad’s sim-pod but in reverse. Instead of the quicksilver back and forth of simulated input and output, the back of his mind grows heavy with memory and knowledge that Eddie can almost feel as it’s pulled down and into somewhere else.

Eddie wakes up the next morning when it’s so early it’s dark and the sun isn’t expected for another couple hours.

He’s still achingly hungry despite choking down the caloric equivalent of three days worth of food and he carefully doesn’t think about why that might be.

Investigating Drake hadn’t been the smartest thing Eddie’d ever done, case in point the asshole had ruined him after Eddie had accused the billionaire of being in the IMC’s pocket. Instead it had turned out to be so much worse and Eddie has the data in a USB-key burning a hole in his pocket to prove it this time.

But he can’t deal with that right now.

So Eddie hauls himself upright, chokes down another three day’s worth of **_dead, disgusting_ ** rations, and heads out, still dressed in the clothes he escaped in yesterday, to set some snares. The animal trails surrounding the little homestead have shifted around a bit but not much, and it’s surprisingly easy for Eddie to call up ancient memories of his grandad teaching him the skills needed. He spends the next few hours in a fugue; locating ideal spots, carefully setting snares, and covering his own presence with ease as direction and advice rise up from the heavy darkness at the back of his mind.

Eddie tosses his clothes in the sonic wash and himself in the shower when he gets back to the hab.

There isn’t anything other than decades old bar soap and the water is on the colder side of tepid, but this is the nicest shower Eddie’s had in weeks. He very carefully doesn’t think about how this is the only shower he’s had in weeks. It’s refreshing to clean all the build up of captivity and escape and trapping and **_hunting_ ** even if he has to keep restarting the water when the timer runs out. He’s the only one here and Eddie could care less about conserving the grey water for anything other than showering.

It’s peaceful and Eddie can’t help relaxing into that heavy presence that he’s been studiously ignoring.

The cool water brings back old, old, old memories of them slipping young and un-bonded and un-bound through clear water with others of their kind. It’s a nice feeling, Eddie thinks, full of clean joy. In turn he thinks of the time he’d spent in the sim-pod, ignoring reality and chasing all the Titan certifications that civilians were allowed to have. The emotions are a close reflection, and Eddie and the presence in his head that he Is Not Thinking About spend another fifteen minutes in the shower ignoring reality before the stabbing hunger returns.

Eddie’s clothes are long since cleaned, even though the stains, along with a faint smell, still lingers on them because there’s only so much you can do without using actual water. He puts them on while heading to the kitchenette.

He’s reaching for a third ration and not thinking about how each one of the nasty things is supposed to feed a person for three days when his hand stops moving.

**_Hungry, Eddie, need food, Eddie, need meat, Eddie_ **

“I’m gonna get it.” Eddie gritted through his teeth, “But I’d like to not feel like I’m digesting myself when I’m walking a fucking mile to check the damn traps.”

**_Fine_ **

Just as quickly as he stopped, Eddie’s able to move his hand again and he snatches the ration and chokes it down before whatever the fuck that was can stop him again.

**_Disgusting_ **

“You’re not wrong.”

A sense of a huffed breath.

**_Of course_ **

Eddie doesn’t think about that interaction as he heads out into the forest.

The first snare is unchanged, as is the second, and the third, but the fourth has something in it. The creature is basically a rabbit, sure the fur is a strange texture and shade of green and it’s got shorter ears, but it hops like a rabbit, freezes in terror like a rabbit, and, when Eddie grabs it, it screams like a rabbit.

Muscle memory that should be faded but somehow isn’t guides Eddie when he snaps the rabbit’s neck and it takes all the willpower he has not to rip its belly open and slurp up it entrails. If he hadn’t eaten before checking the traps he probably wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. Instead he tucks the body away in his pack and moves on, ignoring the beginnings of grumbling in his head and in his stomach.

**_Eat while it is fresh_ **

“No!”

The fifth snare is empty.

The sixth and last, is not.

Eddie’s body lunges forward as soon as he catches sight of the rabbit, and he watches as his fingers turn into black tipped claws and feels as needle sharp teeth subsume his own. A tongue that isn’t his drops out of his mouth.

“ **Hungry, Eddie.** ” His mouth says with something else’s voice.

There’s nothing he can do as his body grabs the rabbit and shoves it head first into his mouth. Eddie feels his jaw unhinge, or maybe it’s not unhinged maybe the shape of it has changed, and the muscles of his throat shift strangely around the struggling creature. His jaw and something else’s teeth close through the first half of the rabbit, blood gushing in his mouth and down his throat and over his lips onto his shirt. Muscles in his neck pull the flesh down autonomously and something else pulls in great gasping breaths of air.

Eddie is in shock.

He’s been horrified and crumpled into a ball and tossed aside in his own body. There’s a strange copper-iron taste in his mouth and his whole face feels like it should be numb but isn’t. Eddie feels the thing’s fucking tongue like it’s his own, the teeth feel like they’re his teeth too, the claws feel like they’re his.

“ **It is good, Eddie, is it not?** ”

And it is horrifically good, the thing’s pleasure feels like his own too.

It uses him to swallow the rest of the rabbit and then pulls out the first one from his pack.

“ **This will not be as good, you should have let us eat this fresh.** ”

Eddie tries to ball himself up tighter, almost incoherent as his body swallows the first rabbit whole.

“ **Thank you, Eddie.** ” His body says for something that isn’t him.

Then the tongue and teeth and claws are gone and Eddie is just Eddie again crouched over his pack and breathing heavily through his nose.

Eddie who is just Eddie then proceeds to have a quiet panic attack. He tucks his chin against his chest, clutches his head with both hands, and mentally Goes Away like he hadn’t been able to when something else was in charge.

The entire time Eddie’s busy Not Being There he can feel a hesitant presence that is somehow both half behind him and half in the back of his mind.

By midafternoon, Eddie stands up and makes his way back to the hab after resetting the snare because the homestead has reminded him of the desperate practicality of living on the outskirts with no safety nets other than what you make for yourself.

He can’t ignore what Drake did to him--what Drake _put_ in him any more.

Humanity has always had rumors of sentient alien life. Even before they managed to leave Earth’s atmosphere all those years ago, and centuries of space travel finding nothing more than animals had done nothing to extinguish that hope. If you looked hard enough, there were alien conspiracy theories surrounding any advancement made by any tech company Frontier based or otherwise.

The LIFE Foundation had more conspiracy theories than most, but that wasn’t why Eddie had been investigating them. Whatever he was doing, had started after an unexpected meteoroid struck a LIFE satellite and knocked itself and the satellite through the atmosphere, burning all the way down.

Drake left a trail of bodies. It couldn’t be traced anywhere, but if you believed the Frisco homeless population, and Eddie did, the LIFE Foundation was running something that was chewing people up. Eddie hadn’t been able find much in the way of solid evidence until he realized that Annie’s firm was working for LIFE and he committed the most unforgivable betrayal he could have. Then he got fired and Annie got fired and left him and he spiraled for months.

Eventually, he’d gone through with publishing what little solid information he had and all of the speculation to his website. He’d received a cease and desist notice almost immediately and had been snatched off the street a week later.

The article he’d posted had ignored all the conspiracy theories, including the newest one regarding the meteorite and Frisco’s disappearing homeless population.

Maybe Eddie shouldn’t have ignored the theories.

**_No, they’re overly complicated and inaccurate_ **

The thing spoke up for the first time since it took over.

“They’re not fucking wrong, though, are they.” It’s not really a question. Eddie stepped into the hab, dropping his pack and slamming the door behind him.

The thing recoils in the back of his mind, though from the noise or his statement Eddie didn’t know.

**_No, they’re not_ **

“So what the fuck’re you doing here, then.” It’s also not really a question.

His shirt is covered in blood, ruined beyond the sonic washer so he fills the tiny kitchen sink and drops it in to soak.

**_Not going to ask what we are?_ **

“It’s not relevant. Whatever you are, you’re in me and you’ve shown you can do whatever you want to me.”

It flinches harder this time, a sudden contraction along his spine that almost knocks him over.

“Fuck! Could you--Can you not do that!? Shit!”

**_Sorry, Eddie_ **

It pauses and Eddie takes the opportunity to sit down on the cot before the thing accidentally knocks him to the floor.

**_We were on the seed ship_ **

It began and then its voice went odd, as though it was reciting something.

 ** _\-- an invasion force thousands strong,_** **_Our scouting party was brought to the surface but the seed ship was destroyed ,_** **_That does not matter the scouting party is enough ,_** **_They are trapped by the target species ,_** **_You are not You will continue ,_** **_Yes_**

Then it seemed to come back to itself.

**_We are just us and our Teamleader, (Glory-and-Violence-in-Disruption) Riot, now, and We--I just want to live_ **

“So you’re rogue, then?” Eddie’s stripping the blood soaked bracelets off of his wrist now, piling them of the low table between the cot and the couch. They’ll get soaked after his shirt. Hopefully he won’t have to trash all of them, but the blood is dry and flaking now so he’d probably be better off trashing them.

He doesn’t want to, though.

**_Yes…_ **

Its sadness strikes Eddie like a physical thing. A desolate loneliness that his own experiences after Drake ruined his life reflect, not exactly, but closely enough. He can feel it--them--he can feel them giving up hope, though he can’t imagine why.

“And what d’you think Riot’s gonna do?”

**_They will continue the mission until they succeed or are incapable of functioning, though they will need to be careful, they will try to signal another seed ship or perhaps they will divide themself_ **

The thought has them almost desolate, and Eddie realizes they the alien is just as lost and lonely as Maria, or Eric, or Fran, or any of the others who’ve gone missing. Misunderstood and trapped in another world in another person and in another culture.

He doesn’t get it, not really, but he can empathize.

**_They will destroy this place eventually and Us_ **

The last part sticks out at Eddie.

“What do you mean, Us?”

**_Us, Eddie, we are in symbiosis, a perfect match_ **

Joy and pride and astonishment and contentment radiate from the alien where it rests in the back of Eddie’s mind and along his spine.

**_We are Us, Eddie, We are Eddie and We are Venom_ **

They show Eddie the shape of their truth. Yes they took over his body, but only to get what they needed. What they want, and don’t say, is a partnership. Them and Eddie together, each as much a part of the other as they are themselves.

And maybe it’s because the homestead is bringing up bad memories, and maybe it’s because he’s been so lonely since Annie, or maybe it’s just because he’s always had something of a dependant personality--But Eddie wants that too.

“So if you’re me and I’m you, what’re we gonna do?”

Their grin curls onto Eddie’s face. He’d be freaked out, but he can feel the shape of whatever they’re grinning about, and it has him grinning too.

**_We can do whatever We want, Eddie, go anywhere, do anything_ **

It’s a big revelation but at the same time it doesn’t surprise Eddie. Drake managed to stick a rogue alien invader in the one guy who has plenty of reason, and now actual proof, to take him down.

There’s a lot of questions he still needs to ask, not the least of which was why the hell they had needed to eat live rabbits, and he obviously needs to figure out more of a plan, but…

“Wanna go bring down Drake?”

Eddie feels them follow his thoughts: get to Frisco somehow, drop off the USB-key, see what happens from there. Eddie has first hand experience with both Drake’s private army and his access to all of Frisco’s cameras and computer infrastructure so there’s not a single chance it’ll go that smoothly, but that’s part of the appeal he thinks. If they can do anything, and Eddie’s getting flashes from Venom of them, together and powerful and large and strong, then there’s no reason not to try.

Maybe they could even hijack a Titan.

**_Yessss_ **

Karma, as they say, is a bitch.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started this because I wanted Eddie and Venom in a Titan and then didn't get there... Mainly because I just Can Not see Eddie as a Pilot. But don't worry, they'll get there! I want to continue this, but it stands well enough on its own, and I have other things I need to work on now that this is out of my system.


End file.
